Dastardly Dianic Devolutions of Dizzying Dames
by Original-Elfkin
Summary: Fran, Penelo and Ashe play a joke on Balthier. No pairings, though Balthier has a few lusty observations about Vaan.


Author's note: Balthier is a poor, poor victim here. Please forgive. This came about because Balthier seems uniquely ill-suited in the game to laugh at himself. So I had others do it for him.

The working title is listed below. doesn't allow long titles so the posted title is shorter.

Enjoy!!!

Disclaimer: No actual Balthiers were injured in the making of this fanfic... Oh yeah, and I don't own squat.

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**The Dastardly Dianic Devolutions of Dizzyingly Demented Dames**

The moment Balthier walked in the room, he knew he was in dire, _dire_ trouble. There were the lovely women of their group, all sitting around on one of the circular wall-seats in the Strahl's lounge, knee to knee.

Talking.

They were doing that thing women always did. That annoying and slightly frightening _psychic_ thing women did...like when they all sought out the privy in a public place as a unified gaggle. Or, if you believed some men's assessment of the fairer sex, a murder of crows.

Still, the view was nice, and if he and Vaan made no overtures to upset them--regardless of which flock of birds they resembled most that day--then he would likely not have his sanity challenged. Overmuch.

Speaking of Vaan...

He took one look at his apprentice and yet again had to wonder how the boy had managed to survive this long. Vaan was actually daring to interrupt their conversation. Did he _not_ know that was taking his life into his own hands...his very, very inept hands at that!

Certainly this had best be a lesson Balthier taught the boy right away, before Vaan got them _both_ into trouble. Women were artistry itself when alone. They were a gift from the gods in sets of two. But three or more women together risked destabilization of reality in its currently defined state. He'd learned this the hard way.

He still wasn't sure if it was Vintage Serpentwyne or barrel aged Madhu that had also been involved in the hard knock lesson. Balthier wasn't sure it mattered.

"Vaan, stop bothering the ladies and come over here. We aren't done discussing your technique." Balthier cocked a brow when Fran was subtly slipped a coin from both Ashe and Penelo. A cold shiver ran down his spine. This didn't bode well.

His apprentice appeared, unsurprisingly, utterly unaware of his eminent danger. Balthier would have to save him, yet again. He grabbed the boy's sleeve and headed to the other table in the lounge. Basch was sitting there. And though Balthier hated setting up the chess board for a battle of the sexes, he didn't want to risk getting caught in women's territory.

Vaan gave him an odd look as he pushed the boy to sit down. "Balthier, what's gotten into you?"

"Nothing at all, Vaan. It simply wasn't gentlemanly to stand about like gormless seeqs. The ladies were having a fine time, ere we arrived. We shouldn't interrupt."

He could at least give the boy credit in that he obviously didn't buy Balthier's excuse. "Did you just compare us to a couple of seeq's?" Vaan wrinkled his nose.

"Hardly, dear boy. I...." Balthier froze, transfixed. He'd watched many a palmer in his day and he knew a pass when he saw one. The question was, what diabolical plan required Penelo to pass a coin to Ashe?

"Ivalice to Balthier, come in Balthier." Vaan waved a hand in front of his face and Balthier made a note to put the boy through extra rapier practice the next morning. Hopefully he'd dump him on his pink little rump a few extra times.

"I think Balthier is concerned that the ladies are enjoying themselves a little too much," Basch offered in his perennially diplomatic tone.

Balthier eyed him narrowly. That comment was a little too much like bait. "Not at all, old man. A leading man never begrudges beautiful women their pleasures."

Balthier was fascinated momentarily by a bustle of confused excitement exuding from the seat of their _fairer sorts_. Each of the women looked at each other and counted on fingers several times. Then they seemed to give up all at once, yet more evidence of that malevolent psychic connection at work--and Ashe reached for a slip of paper bearing a list Balthier was too far away to read.

After a moment of consulting the list, there was a collection of various 'ah's' and 'of course's'. And then more coin changed hands.

What in the Seven Hells of Nicodemus was going on!

Vaan seemed oblivious still, and Balthier began to question his apprentice's IQ. Basch, on the other hand picked up his drink to hide what Balthier was sure was a knowing grin behind his cup--the sell-out.  
Basch has survived two years incarcerated as a living dead man and yet they'd broken him in one afternoon. Without laying a hand on him, of course. This was a triumvirate of women he was dealing with. Nothing so unholy was ever begot.

Vaan handed him a tall glass of something, Madhu by the smell of it. "Here, Balthier. You look a little tense."

Balthier took the drink and noted that he needed to teach Vaan, among other things, the proper glass to serve brandy in. This was a water glass, and as such, probably had at least four shots worth of liquor in it.

Balthier kicked half of it back anyway. Fortification against the coming horror.

Fran cleared her throat and Balthier heard his death knell ring stridently in his ears. Of course, that could have been the huge gulp of alcohol he'd just imbibed as well. "Balthier, come over here. Bring your apprentice."

"Of course, Fran my dear." More money changed hands, this time all of it going to Fran. He didn't miss the insulted look on Ashe and Penelo's features.

He gestured for Vaan to follow him, bringing along his half empty glass of Madhu. Vaan staggered a glance between him and the seat of women before deciding to comply.

The seat across from the ladies was conspicuously empty so Balthier sat there, and stretched out languorously--trying desperately to look casual. Confident... not about to soil his leathers in the face of the dark powers at work before him. But Fran's slotted little nose twitched and Balthier knew she could smell his fear.

He gulped. She smiled preditorially. Balthier prayed silently.

"What's up, ladies?" Vaan asked in that delightfully clueless tone.

_Poor, poor Vaan_, Balthier ruminated. _Cut down in his prime. Cut down before I got to do anything delightful with that pert arse of his._ Balthier waited for it to come, knowing he would have to watch. He owed Vaan that much. Next time he got finagled into taking an apprentice, he'd teach the poor thing about women first.

Only the cutting down of Vaan's admittedly comely prime never came. Maybe they were drawing things out for optimal effect. Moments passed without bloodshed and Balthier wondered if they were going to apply whatever scathe-less technique they'd used on Basch. It would be_ just_ like them.

Penelo smiled amiably and Ashe inclined her head. Fran let out a small, sideways smile. Here it was...the fathomless, dark trinity. "Nothing much, Vaan. You know...just hanging out, talking girl talk," Penelo offered with a genuine smile. _Oh_, Balthier thought. _She's good, that one_.

Poor sod that he was, Vaan was oblivious to the perfidy at hand. Maybe it was better he didn't see it coming. "What's with the lpaper?" Vaan asked, and Balthier had to wonder if Vaan really was as clueless as he seemed.

"Oh, it's just our checklist.," Ashe offered cheerily. Which was eerie in itself, Balthier noted. Dalmasca's last scion was _never_ cheery.

"Checklist?" Vaan inquired, interest peaking in his gray-eyed gaze. Balthier almost had to look away. It was too terrible to watch, even for his jaded old soul.

"Yeah, you know. For a game we're playing." Penelo gently took the list and smiled at it. "I think Fran's ahead. But that's 'cause she's cheating."

Fran crisply snapped the paper in question from Penelo's fingers. "I did _not _cheat," she offered in an affronted tone. "I simply have more experience in this particular game."

"What game is it?" Vaan asked. "Can I play?"

Fran looked positively rapacious at that point. And Balthier knew the gig was up at last. He could go back to storing his spare wardrobe in Vaan's room after tonight. The boy wouldn't be needing it any longer. "I assure you Vaan, you _can_ play. Though I will have to teach you the rules another time."

"At least tell me what the game is? I saw you all passing coin."

Penelo giggled at that. "Yeah, a gil each hit. It's Buzzword Betting, Vaan. You pick a victim...I mean person..." She laughed again, as ebullient a sound as it was innocent. "Then you sorta, listen to what they say for a bit."

Penelo, it seemed, was like a fuzzy little Giza hare. One had no idea it was so deadly until it was too late. Balthier had learned long ago never to trust anything that cute.

"How's that a game?" Vaan asked.

Balthier was about to warn his apprentice to duck and run. But... "Indeed, what _is_ Buzzword Betting?"

"Ahh..." Fran said. "It speaks."

"I'll have you know..." Balthier was about to defend himself when all three women chimed in at once.

"Aha!" they shouted. Instantly the list was consulted and variable amounts of coin were traded out, yet again.

"What is going on!" Balthier couldn't refrain from demanding an explanation for this soul stealing insanity, any longer. Sometimes death needed a name.

"Buzzword Betting, Balthier," Ashe repeated archly. "Surely a man of your letters understands the language well enough to vet out that meaning."

Fran waved her hand airily. "I suppose we shall have to explain. Men are, when all is said and done, simple creatures."

"What Fran is trying to say is that some people say certain _things_..." Penelo offered by way of diverting Vaan from the insult. "And if they say those _things_ a lot. Well....you can sorta start to almost predict a pattern."

"What kind of things?" Vaan asked, clearly confused.

Balthier was right there with him.

"Balthier, for all his touted intellect, has a repertoire of ridiculously recycled rhetoric." Fran seemed very pleased with herself. Balthier knew that fact, along with Viera alliteration, was one of the imminent signs of the pending Apocalypse.

But since when did this insanity become about him? Vaan was the one who'd interrupted them! He looked at his apprentice-in-making. The round face, the open expression, the milk-fat (kissable) lips. Of course, why hadn't he seen it earlier! They wouldn't harm Vaan, he still had far too much of the child in him. Hell, there were days when Balthier wondered how long Vaan had been off the tit, able thief or not. So it was no surprise that the master would pay for the sins of the student. It was the way of things in this world, sometimes. Balthier drew in a bracing breath, anticipating the worst and knowing he wouldn't be disappointed.

"Okay," Vaan said. "So...how do you make Balthier's uppity speech patterns into a betting game?"

Balthier took another swig of brandy, deciding his remaining minutes on this earth were best spent plotting how to haunt his apprentice.

"Come now, Vaan. Haven't you noticed Balthier lectures more than he speaks. Anyone who lectures has a script." Ashe was enjoying herself. Clearly--and for the first time in his experience, if Balthier's madhu dulled mind managed to matriculate his memories aright.

_Fine mess this is! _Balthier thought sourly. _Now I'm doing it. The end is definitely nigh..._ "I'll wager..." Balthier began, and then stopped, watching their evil woman-ish eyes light up as more coin was passed--this time without consulting the list.

"Dear ladies... This just won't do."

Penelo jumped up, no sooner than the words were out of his mouth. She handed a coin to Ashe and shrugged. ""Okay, I'm holding onto what I have left. You two are too good at this."

A light suddenly went on inside Vaan's head and the desert youth suddenly gusted out a violent laugh, clutching his sides. Balthier kicked back the last gulp of his drink and hoped the resultant buzz blocked the obnoxious noise out.

"You mean to tell me..." Vaan was now giggling almost too hard to speak. "You mean to tell me that you're betting on Balthier's words?"

"Rather on the predictability thereof, Vaan," Fran offered helpfully. "After years of traveling with him, it's the easiest way to offset the tedium."

Ashe lost her considerable composure at that point and joined Vaan in a very unprincess-like, belly-splitting laugh. "You have an unfair advantage, Fran," she gasped.

"Not at all, Your Highness. If you've heard even one day of his speeches, you are an expert in this game."

Vaan howled out loud at that, and Balthier reminded himself that tomorrow would be a day of great reprisal. One thwack of his practice rapier at a time...

Though Vaan was either unconcerned or unaware of Balthier's plans for him. "I... I..." he wiped his teary eyes and gulped a breath. "Balthier, I never realized you were so...predictable!"

Balthier stood and headed for the door, snagging the bottle of liqueur along the way. "I believe the term you're so gallantly seeking is 'steadfast', Vaan."

That started another round of hilarity, and Balthier departed the room. He could still hear his crewmate and passengers long down the deck-hall. Let them have their fun. He would get his back.

That is, so long as the women didn't team up on him, again. No man, not even a _leading _man, could win against those odds.


End file.
